


no love of/ in desolation

by liminal



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3138404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"But I have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike desolation." - Lord Byron</i>
</p><p>  <i>"Loneliness becomes a lover, solitude a darling sin.” - Ian Fleming</i></p><p>-</p><p>Knowing that he is loved is enough for this man of science and empiricism.</p><p>Post 9.24 ('Demons')</p>
            </blockquote>





	no love of/ in desolation

Blake picks up his bag and insists that she’s taking him home, shrugging off offers from the rest of the team and Spencer’s protestations. Even Hotch offers, telling Reid to stop being difficult with the soft, half smile he reserves for the team in their darkest moments. The BAU waves him off, wishing him better, and JJ promises to bring Henry round soon. Will wants to cut the little boy’s hair, tidy him up a little bit, and he’s hoping that the more Henry sees Spence with shorter hair, the fewer tantrums there’ll be whenever scissors are mentioned.

Spencer only smiles in reply, says that would be great. Of late his hair’s been getting longer and scruffier, prone to static and practically allergic to a hairbrush. Not, of course, that hair can suffer from allergies, let alone to something as inorganic as a hairbrush, but in his present condition, Spencer’s inclined to let the error slide just this once. And he doesn’t envisage a trip to the barber any time soon, no matter what snide comments his Aunt Ethel makes. His hair won’t lie flat, it falls across his forehead and into his eyes, and Spencer refuses to shed the cocoon he has cultivated.

*

Blake hails a cab and the ride downtown is quiet. Bumps in the road turn the dull ache in Spencer’s neck into something fiery and every wince is followed by an appraisal from Blake. Her soft eyes rake over him, checking for minute indicators of damage, though his major injuries haven’t left physical marks. Her gaze rarely shifts throughout the journey, although it never once reaches his eyes, but Spencer doesn’t mind. It’s mothering and nurturing and natural; something his own mother might have done or should have done, but didn’t. 

He thinks about Emily as his apartment block comes into view, of how he told only her about his headaches, knowing that she wouldn’t fuss like Garcia or JJ would, that she wouldn’t ask him what was really at the root of it all, like Rossi or Hotch or Morgan would. 

As the car pulls up to the sidewalk, his neck throbs, but pain is beneficial and that too will pass.

*

Photos in Spencer’s apartments are few and far between. _I don’t need them,_ he’d said when Garcia and Morgan had asked about it, on that weekend when they and JJ had re-stocked bookshelves and opened curtains, _I remember everything anyway_. Memory is a blessing and a curse, and too often recently it’s felt like the latter.

He has some photos, though, placed sporadically around the room, framed and propped up or balanced carefully against cracking spines. One of the team at Will and JJ’s wedding that her mother had insisted upon, where everyone’s smiling and he’s crouching down at the front so Henry, perched on his shoulders in a matching tuxedo, fits in the shot too. One of Maeve, and one that the Replicator took of him that he kept for reasons he can’t quite justify to himself. None from his childhood. Those memories don't need a physical form.

He has books and objects instead. ‘The Narrative of John Smith’ is returned to its usual place, Alex’s badge and ID propped against the spine of her linguistics textbook. Rossi’s volumes take up a good half a shelf; Gideon’s letter, flattened by hands that constantly smoothed it down, looking for some buried meaning or hidden explanation, lies tucked inside a book of Tennyson poems. 

The apartment is full of people, even if Spencer is the only one standing in it. He has been left by and let down by so many people, but he's never had so many people who he loves and who love him in such constant, close proximity.

For now, knowing that he is loved is enough for this man of science and empiricism. He is used to ruins and too easily becomes one himself, but the people he loves bring him home, and no emptiness, no abyss engulfs him.


End file.
